“Unconditional Love” Is Unbiblical Nonsense (June 11, 2006)

An article in Sunday's Chicago Tribune says that Jane Adams' philosophy of social engagement "was rooted in her commitment to the message of unconditional love in the teachings of Jesus."

What message of unconditional love in the teachings of Jesus?

I can't find "unconditional love" in the words of Jesus or anywhere
else in the Bible. But that phrase has become so entrenched in
religious vocabulary that just about everyone, Christian and
non-Christian alike, assumes it is biblical. It isn't. Jesus taught
that God's love is conditional, and he himself exemplified conditional
love in his dealings with men.

In John 16:27 he said to his disciples, "The Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God." If the Father's love were unconditional, this statement would be meaningless or false. The doctrine of unconditional love would have to remove the "because" from that verse and make it read, "The Father himself loves you whether or not you have loved me and have believed that I came from God."

In John 15:10 Jesus said, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love." This is straightforward. Remaining in the love of Christ is conditioned on obedience to his commands. That's what the word "if" means! The word "if" introduces a condition. If (now there's a condition for you) our Lord's love were unconditional, he would have said "Whether or not you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.

In John 14:21 Jesus said, "He who loves me will be loved by my Father." If God's love were unconditional, that statement would read, "He who loves/hates/ignores/whatevers me will be loved by my Father." Again, the words of Jesus, as given, are as transparently conditional as they can be.

Jesus said, "Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:33). I cannot see how being disowned by Jesus is consistent with being loved by him. If someone were to say, "But this too is love! When Jesus banishes eternally from the presence of God those who disown him, that too - if we could only understand it - is just one more tender act of his unconditional love," I would answer with C. S. Lewis' memorable line, "Don't talk damn nonsense."

When Jesus calls Herod a fox (I.e., "rat", "weasel" - Luke 13:32), when he calls hypocrites children of the devil (John 8:44), when he denounces the Pharisees with scathing woes (Matthew 23:13-33), when he blows off his own family(!) - Luke 8:19-21 - he is not loving them. Love is when he calls his obedient disciples his friends (John 15:15). Love is when he washes their feet (John 13:5).

More than once I have received kind comments from people who thanked me for preaching God's unconditional love, and I don't know how to respond. I don't correct them. They're being nice. In fact, they probably understood me just fine - the problem really lies in the fact that they don't know what the word "unconditional" means.

So why do I make such a fuss about the dictionary definition of this word? Don't I have better things to do than play semantic games, and insist on the proper usage of the word "unconditional"?

I'll tell you why I fret about this word. Words condition thoughts. Careless words distort truth. Words that are used imprecisely by one generation are taken literally and at face value by the next, with devastating consequences.

I believe one possible result of this relentless jabbering about God's "unconditional love" will be more sin - and hence, less of God's love. Already I'm getting tired of sinners who defy God's commands but who still believe that he loves them anyway. Given today's homiletic unclarity, why shouldn't they believe that? They have been absorbing that sound-bite about God's unconditional love into their bloodstream like a nicotine patch. It has taken the edge off their natural craving
to be loved by him. Why yearn for that? Why adjust behavior in order to obtain it? The preachers have been telling them that God's love is already theirs, in abundance, and nothing they can do or fail to do will add to or detract from it.

I would rather they hear again and again the fearsome but biblical admonition, "Stop sinning, or God won't love you."